Monday, 12 October 2015

Sicario could well have been titled: EPIC ANTICIPATION. It keeps building up, thanks to Jóhann Jóhannsson's terrific background score, only to flame out to insignificance.

This take on the Mexican drug trade doesn't know where to linger. So it sluggishly flows from FBI agent Kate's (Emily Blunt, nicely done, badly sketched as a central character) point of view, giving us a mitigated view of proceedings, adding brutality, loss and revenge, the latter as an unconvincing twist. Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro are competent, but apart from sluggish atmospherics, there is not much to salvage here.

One arresting part...

Picture a group of black SUV's moving relentlessly from US to Mexico and back, with a prisoner in tow. Then, amidst a traffic snarl, gun-wielders from either side of the law, draw their weapons and wait.This is the only time, apart from the first five minutes that Sicario comes alive.